Escambia County Professional Fire Fighters President Nick Gradia explains how the charity needs the community’s help to renovate a home for displaced families.

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Escambia County Firefighter Charity has entered an agreement with Potential Church to lease the single-family home located on Keating Road. This artist rendering from Friday, Jan. 5, 2018 depicts the proposed exterior design of the building.(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)Buy Photo

Firefighters are usually the first on scene when families lose everything in a blaze, but when they move on the next emergency, they know they're often leaving behind a family with no place to go.

It’s a helpless feeling that stuck with Escambia County Professional Fire Fighters charity coordinator Ian Sumner, so much so that he began looking into how local departments could help the families displaced in the fires they extinguish.

“We’ve seen too many times where families are displaced and they’ve lost everything and the biggest concern you see on the parents’ faces is, ‘well I don’t have a safe place to put me and my family until I can figure things out,’” said Nick Gradia, ECPFF president.

The charity is a separate entity from Escambia County Fire Rescue, but Sumner said almost all Escambia County firefighters are members of the charity.

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Escambia County Firefighter Charity has entered an agreement with Potential Church to lease the single-family home located on Keating Road.
(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

The result of the firefighters' brainstorming is an emergency shelter for families displaced by residential fires. The safe house will give the families time to get back on their feet and figure out where to go next. It's in its early stages, but the charity has identified the house and now is seeking the public's help to get it operational.

The approximately 1,700-square-foot Keating Road house will be rented from Potential Church — which owns the property — for a nominal fee. But first the firefighters will need to renovate the building and make it habitable again.

The charity announced its idea for the house at its fundraising gala last year, after which Potential Church’s pastor told Sumner about the Keating Road house, which they had been using for storage.

The house is currently dilapidated and in need of substantial repairs that are estimated at around $100,000.

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Escambia County Firefighter Charity has entered an agreement with Potential Church to lease the single-family home located on Keating Road. (Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

The charity is working to find local businesses willing to donate labor, equipment and materials to get the home up to standard, which Sumner hopes to do in the next few months. Because he doesn’t know how much help they’ll get from the community, Sumner doesn’t have a definitive date for when the first family will be able to stay in the house.

Once opened, the house will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis to families. Sumner said in the last week or so of cold weather, house fires have displaced at least four local families, so he knows it’s an unmet need in the community.

The American Red Cross already serves displaced families in helping them with immediate lodging for a few days, but both Gradia and Sumner said they feel the need is greater for families to stay up to a few weeks to assess aspects like their finances and options for what to do next.

The nine-bedroom residence will house one family at a time, as well as storage space the charity hopes to eventually convert into a clothes closet for those who are devastated by the loss of their belongings.

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Escambia County Firefighter Charity President, Nick Gradia, describes the organization's efforts to turn this house on into a temporary shelter for families that suffer catastrophic losses from house fires during an interview Friday, Jan. 5, 2107. The organization has entered an agreement with Potential Church to lease the single-family home located on Keating Road.
(Photo: Tony Giberson/tgiberson@pnj.com)

“I know we have a lot of families in the area without family nearby, they don’t have friends nearby, they live paycheck to paycheck... . having seen that struggle and the look on people’s faces at a fire, I believe in this 100 percent,” Gradia said.

Ideally, the charity would eventually have multiple houses until the need is met, but Gradia said once the first home is up and running it will be easier to assess the ongoing need for such a service.

Anyone wishing to help the Escambia County Professional Fire Fighters house can contact Sumner at 850-698-3105 or via email at charity.coordinator@escambiafirefighters.com.